


i’ll play the victim for you honey, but not for free

by FrenchTwistResistance



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Figured I ought to be decent about it, I usually don’t tag because if you don’t know this is my secret shame incest ship, but additionally this time, sexual abuse mention, well get off my lawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 15:59:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19749016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Hilda and Zelda don’t know what they want from each other. Until they do.





	i’ll play the victim for you honey, but not for free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UbiquitousMixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/gifts), [winethroughwater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/gifts).



> I tried with this prompt to satisfy both myself—who’s been craving angst—and you two—who wanted country-western bar and mechanical bull fun times.

It’s not the killing or the dying or even the resurrecting that’s so bad.

Zelda’s always been volatile, and it’s not like it’s permanent. 

The first time had been pretty fraught. Pretty scary. Pretty touch and go. The Cain Pit had been merely rumor and family legend that first time, not just the facts of the matter, as it is now. Hilda’s life force had receded, slipped out slowly through the jagged hole Zelda had made in her side with the chef’s knife, and Hilda had thought in her final moments, at least it was a big sharp knife and so a quicker death. Could’ve been a grapefruit spoon. That would’ve been much more painful and rather more ridiculous. 

Dimly she’d seen Zelda running, frantic, knife still in hand, crying and cursing and begging Edward to help her. It had been mostly an accident, after all—a heated verbal exchange, a brief exchange of paltry physical blows, their bodies too close at the kitchen counter and then the knife that had been chopping carrots as a warning against ribs, faltering footsteps, too many shared breaths and then. 

Hilda had closed her eyes and waited to see if she’d meet the Dark Lord. Opened her eyes to meet dark soil instead. Huh, she’d thought, that’s all there was to it, then? Just anger, capitulation, and a few hours later petrichor?

Hilda has a high pain tolerance and an incapacity to be as bothered about the whole routine as she probably ought.

Except for the look on Zelda’s face when she does it. That’s what burns. That’s what sears into her brain and heart. That’s what she has a hard time forgiving.

If she didn’t love Zelda so much, that look of disgust and hatred and pain and rage wouldn’t hurt so much.

But that’s just the facts of it by now, too. Hilda’s come to terms with it: she loves Zelda, desires Zelda even. Feels a rush of shameful arousal every time Zelda comes at her with a weapon and that look in her eyes.

And that’s half the reason the look hurts. The other half is that it objectively hurts to be looked at that way. 

But it’s a hurt she indulges in, analyzes later, sometimes deliberately encourages. She’ll sometimes pick a fight just so she can see that look on her own terms to be parsed and reverse-engineered in those hyper-lucid hours after resurrection. And that’s certainly a thing. Her synapses are new and quaking after a rebirth, just itching for something to figure out and wrestle with intellectually. She’d prodded Zelda into killing her the night before the bubbling competition so she could have that edge of reawakened and rekindled neurons.

But still that look on Zelda’s face. The rage she gets. It’s easy to be angry, especially for Zelda, for whom it’s a main personality trait. It’s a simple emotion, easily accessed. But the other things she sees and rather accidentally empathically feels. The disgust and hatred and pain. They’re not all externally focused. As Hilda’s matured and grown in her powers, it’s become more and more obvious to her that Zelda hates herself more than she could ever hate Hilda. And that, somehow, hurts more. That Zelda is struggling with something very deep-seated and somehow thinks she’s consoling herself with murder. It’s not a very good consolation, Hilda thinks. Hilda rises stronger every time, and Zelda is there watching at the gravesite, more damaged every time.

After Edward dies, though, Zelda stops killing her, retreats even further into herself.

They co-parent their new charge and their old charge who had previously been mostly Edward’s. They are pleasant and accommodating to each other. They’ve always liked and hated each other in equal measure, after all. They get along more than they don’t.

But sometimes over the dinner table or a game of hearts or a corpse in the embalming room, Hilda will catch Zelda’s eyes, and that same old look is there. There’s no weapon to back it up, but the look is there, and Hilda sometimes wishes for the weapon so that maybe, just maybe, this time she could figure it out upon pulling herself from the cold, neutral earth.

xxx

Zelda’s known since her Dark Baptism. That night the Dark Lord had come to her—and she’d prayed for it but she had ultimately hated it and had been trying to convince herself she’d deserved and needed it and that it was a blessing ever since. 

That night she’d tried to console herself with a body she had chosen. But it wasn’t her first choice of bodies. Because she’s known since at least her Dark Baptism that the only body she wanted inside her body was Hilda’s.

But that wasn’t possible. That wasn’t condoned. That wasn’t right or good or to be hoped for. When Hilda had—she hates the terminology, but it’s the best she’s got—blossomed at thirteen, Zelda, at fifteen, had not known what to do with herself but masturbate in the shower and pray intensely.

Finally at the Academy she could get some relief. People liked her, gravitated toward her. But then Hilda had appeared, and people liked her more genuinely. People liked Hilda because Hilda was likeable, not because she was scorchingly beautiful and clever and cutting and a slut. People liked Hilda for all the reasons Zelda wanted Hilda—and they were allowed to do so. They could like Hilda and want to fuck Hilda. They could stare at her tits. They could proposition her in the library. They could flirt with her in Hexing 101. They—this elusive and ever-growing horde of they—could and did.

Zelda hated that. She hated that she couldn’t participate. She hated that she wanted to be the only one to participate.

So harrowing began. If Zelda couldn’t have Hilda the way she wanted, no one could. She was aware vaguely she was punishing Hilda for her own crimes, but she was a stupid teenager and didn’t care.

The first time she’d killed Hilda for being too fucking sexy for her own good, Zelda had panicked.

But when Hilda had come out ok, had seemed even better than before, Zelda had thought of it as a blessing. She could be as physical as she wanted—although in a different way—and Hilda could flourish. It was a win-win in Zelda’s eyes. No defiling or lurid, horrible lust. She could satiate herself, and Hilda would be stronger for it and never know the true depths of her depravity.

Working herself up enough to want to harm Hilda was a different matter, however. She often imagined killing herself instead. That definitely guaranteed a follow-through.

But after Edward’s unfortunate demise.

She can’t. She can’t justify killing the sister she so loves. Even if she has to burn. Even if she has to flagellate herself. She can’t stand another death, however mutable.

But seeing Hilda with a baby against her chest, heartbeats synchronizing.

But seeing Hilda talking nonsense to a toddler.

But seeing Hilda turning a tree into an inelegant clubhouse, nails in her mouth, hammer in her hand, hamstrings straining on the ladder.

She masturbates in the shower and prays fervently. She doesn’t know what good that will do, but she can’t help but do it anyway.

xxx

Hilda’s always liked country-western music.

When one is an ageless entity, one can appreciate so much.

And Hilda particularly appreciates the transition from slave work songs to blues to country-western. She feels some white guilt about it, but overall, Hilda enjoys country-western music. There’s a lot of agency there. A lot of controlling one’s own narrative despite adverse circumstances, expressing desires through innuendo and sometimes even yodeling.

Especially now with Dolly Parton’s repressed yearning for Jolene and Reba’s white trash Fancy anthem and Miranda’s spiteful arson.

Hilda listens to a lot of smooth and sexy Conway Twitty, but she’s also into angry girls. Keys into sides of four-wheel drives and nothin’ better to do and all jacked up and not your mama’s broken heart.

Hilda hasn’t liked a male country artist since Dwight Yoakam. But Dwight Yoakam knows about longing and pain and coal mines, besides. Who else has that resume?

Ambrose has settled in, domesticated himself enough to be trusted babysitting young Sabrina.

And Hilda hasn’t been killed in ages. She itches for something. Perhaps not death. Perhaps a life of her own. A sliver of one, anyhow.

She’d thought she’d picked a night that Zelda would be gone and busy—an intense scripture study and prayer session at the Church of Night. Hilda participates in only the most perfunctory of classes, but Zelda is always immersing herself in months-long in-depth walks through different unholy books, which Hilda always suspects are covers for sadomasochistic orgies but never asks about. Anyway, she’d thought she’d chosen the right night to live a little.

She takes herself to the mortal country-western bar on the trashy side of town.

She drinks amaretto sours and two-steps with anyone who asks. And plenty do ask. She’s wearing a pearl-snap whose buttons strain against her ample chest and tight dark-wash jeans that cling to her body delectably and recently shined maroon cowboy boots.

Hilda doesn’t like new dude-bro-party country. She much prefers lush orchestration and walking after midnight or at the very least d-i-v-o-r-c-e, but at least she’s doing something she’s chosen. And at least she’s being chosen. She’d bought her first drink on her own dime, but each following had been sent from a different would-be dance partner-cum-suitor. Five cocktails in, she’s still being spun around the sawdust. It reminds her of those days at the Academy when there was a strictly enforced rotation for who sat next to her in the library for potions tutoring.

It’s Blake Shelton—whom she hates—over the speakers when Hilda is drunk enough on liquor and her own freedom and being looked at positively to mount the mechanical bull.

xxx

Zelda had arrived home early to a slumbering Ambrose in a tutu with Sabrina in a matching tutu asleep on his chest on the divan in the parlor, an abandoned tea party spread haphazardly across the floor and coffee table.

She had recognized this for what it was. Yes, they were bonding, which was honestly adorable. But Hilda had set this in motion so she could be somewhere else.

“Where is your aunt?” Zelda had said, imperious. They’d both groggily looked at her inquisitively before Sabrina had said,

“Oklahoma!”

Zelda knows Hilda. She has known her for so long. If she hadn’t known her, this all wouldn’t have been so horrible.

Zelda knows Hilda likes country-western music. Zelda knows Hilda has been restless lately. She doesn’t need a calculator or scratch paper or an abacus.

The mechanical bull bucks. It’s a pattern Zelda could discern if she tried. It’s been programmed very simply. But she’s too busy watching to catalogue any movements that aren’t Hilda’s.

Hilda’s thighs grasp. Hilda’s hips answer. Hilda’s heels dig in. Hilda’s mouth is open in a gasp or a yeehaw or singing along to asinine lyrics about dogs or beer or what-have-you. One hand is firmly on the tilting thing, and the other is in the air. And Hilda’s thighs, taut, in skin-tight denim, clenching—

Zelda shudders.

She shouldn’t have come looking for her. She should have left well enough alone.

It’s the sort of thing she’ll have to kill her about presently and masturbate in the shower about later. She hadn’t wanted to do either tonight.

xxx

Hilda dips and rises. Her lumbars will definitely complain tomorrow. But she’s determined. She holds on. Body builders, especially men, tend to work biceps and chest, concentrate on the upper body. The show muscles. But Hilda knows the legs are really where it’s at, where the real strength and power resides. She does squats and lunges every morning as part of her daily calisthenics. And now she’s gripping this mechanical bull with her trained quadriceps and singing along to Blake Shelton even though she hates him.

It’s only because she always—through years of practice—clenches her thighs when Zelda looks at her that she doesn’t lose her balance.

Zelda, in her staid black tweed skirt suit, is standing in between a man in a backwards ball cap and a woman in a sequined halter top. And the look on her face as she takes in Hilda on the mechanical bull. Hilda thinks it’s even more arson than Miranda Lambert could manage. It’s disgust and hatred and pain and rage. And lust. Very clearly lust.

The mechanical bull bucks Hilda off onto the mat.

Hilda lies there, stunned, for a moment and then she drags herself up. Zelda is immediately in her face:

“Irresponsible! Not one thought in your minuscule brain!”

Hilda’s too drunk on liquor and her freedom and being looked at and Zelda’s ire, shouts back,

“One thought, Zelds! One thought!”

“You’re drunk!”

“And you want to have your way with me, regardless!”

Zelda slinks back, as though Hilda had slapped her. Hilda grabs her collar, pulls her in closer, says,

“And somehow you think I don’t want that, too.” Hilda kisses her, sloppy and almond-flavored. “Either make love to me or kill me. I can’t stand this in between.”

Zelda pants against her mouth,

“You knew?” Zelda says.

“I’m an optimist, not an idiot,” Hilda says.


End file.
